The consumer price index (CPI) rose for the second straight month, bringing the yearly inflation rate to 2.35 percent last month, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
While all seven sub-indexes rose across the board, economists and academics attributed the CPI’s growth to the low base effect and increased gasoline prices, saying there was no inflationary pressure.
“The major reason for the increased inflation rate was that fuel prices saw a yearly increase of 25.8 percent, contributing 0.17 percentage points to the growth,” DGBAS section chief Wu Chao-ming (吳昭明) told a media briefing.
The core CPI, which is used to track long-term inflation because it excludes volatile vegetable, fruit, fish and energy prices, grew 1.01 percent last month from a year earlier, snapping an eight-month contraction streak, Wu said.
DGBAS data showed that in the first two months of this year, the CPI rose 1.3 percent compared with the same period last year, with merchandise prices rising 3.28 percent.
“The economy is slowly regaining momentum and international raw material prices are rising, so consumer price hikes are inevitable, indicating growing demand,” Wu said. “But due to still severe labor market conditions, commodity prices will not likely increase greatly.”
The CPI rose 0.53 percent last month from January on increased food prices, babysitting charges, taxi fares and travel expenses because of the Lunar New Year holidays, the data showed.
The wholesale price index increased 5.87 percent year-on-year last month, down from 6.74 recorded in January, because of the increased prices of oil products and chemical materials, it said.
Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂), head economist at Citigroup Taiwan Inc, said by telephone that last month’s CPI growth didn’t indicate inflation because the increase was “reasonable” because the inflation rate contracted last year.
“After allowing for the Lunar New Year factors, the CPI’s growth [of more than 2 percent] is temporary,” Cheng said, adding that in the second half of the year the CPI was expected to rise by about 1 percent.
Yang Chia-yen (楊家彥), a director at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院), said inflationary pressure was not a concern so far, but the government should remain on alert for it over the next few months.
“Compared with last year, gasoline prices increased last month, and the base effect should be taken into account as well,” Yang said by telephone, adding that the inflation rate should remain low in the third and fourth quarters.
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is aiming to expand revenue to NT$10 billion (US$304.8 million) this year, as it expects the artificial intelligence (AI) boom to drive demand for wafer delivery pods and pods used in advanced packaging technology. That suggests the firm’s revenue could grow as much as 53 percent this year, after it posted a 28.91 percent increase to NT$6.55 billion last year, exceeding its 20 percent growth target. “We usually set an aggressive target internally to drive further growth. This year, our target is to
The TAIEX ended the Year of the Dragon yesterday up about 30 percent, led by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). The benchmark index closed up 225.40 points, or 0.97 percent, at 23,525.41 on the last trading session of the Year of the Dragon before the Lunar New Year holiday ushers in the Year of the Snake. During the Year of the Dragon, the TAIEX rose 5,429.34 points, the highest ever, while the 30 percent increase in the year was the second-highest behind only a 30.84 percent gain in the Year of the Rat from Jan. 25, 2020, to Feb.
Cryptocurrencies gave a lukewarm reception to US President Donald Trump’s first policy moves on digital assets, notching small gains after he commissioned a report on regulation and a crypto reserve. Bitcoin has been broadly steady since Trump took office on Monday and was trading at about US$105,000 yesterday as some of the euphoria around a hoped-for revolution in cryptocurrency regulation ebbed. Smaller cryptocurrency ether has likewise had a fairly steady week, although was up 5 percent in the Asia day to US$3,420. Bitcoin had been one of the most spectacular “Trump trades” in financial markets, gaining 50 percent to break above US$100,000 and
RSS